Here Forever
by Val-Creative
Summary: Just how Intern Dana got out of the Dog Park alive. Or how she didn't. /Welcome to Night Vale fanfic. WTNV. Oneshot.


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Everyone drops unmoving to the ground… one by one, trapped inside the Dog Park.

It reminds Dana of when she been little (_or_ maybe… when her double had been) and her aunt Mimi used to spray the wasp's nest outside the back porch. The dying wasps made little noises like _tck-tck-tck_, one after another, thudding the wood frame of the porch. Hitting like a loosened bag of silvered marbles. Just like Mimi's dead eyes.

They would limply flutter their little wings, gasping and whispering to the original Dana about the color of honey almonds and how blood tasted in your mouth.

It was like mildly expensive coins, they said; the clinging odor inside your nose; the taste, filling and spilling, molten-hot between your lips.

Her—or _hers_—cell phone gets left behind, breaking apart onto the grass under her foot. She flees, because the wasps are _humming_ to her, and so is the black stone monolith. It's angry. Angry with her and angry with its existence. Angry that Night Vale still stands, unshaken, and grasping firmly to slippery, wet tendrils of what remained of a peaceful existence.

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The fleeing becomes panicked, scream-fueled running. Or maybe the panicked running came first and distracts her from her impending doom.

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The stone, onyx walls bump into her. Wait, no. They can't bump. She can. She's running blind, like Dana or Dana's double has Mimi's silvered, dead eyes.

A thin razor-sliver of overcast moon hangs, the only light available.

Somewhere behind her, twigs break loudly from a distance, like joints in your hand. An unknown Frisbee goes sailing, hitting her between her shoulder blades. _Play_. Something like one of the tennis balls hits her in the thigh, thrown far harder than the first object. It leaves a sticky, dark stain on her bare leg. _Play here forever_.

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She blinks. Her dad taught her to _never_ blink.

("You never know what could be waiting for you on the other side," he warned the original Dana, smoothing a hand through her ponytail. And then her furry, newly acquired fox-tail swishing contently to her ankles. It fell off when she hit her preteens, as did it all for the members of her family in the past. She had been the only one to mourn the loss.)

But she does. Apologizes to the memory of him, and closes her eyes.

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A burst of radiant light sweeps over her. And then her nostrils pick up the scent of the dusty, old foliage.

Her eyes, a hue of blue-violet most common in Night Vale, open.

Dana—she's _Dana_—checks over herself, patting down and slapping her palms noisily to her thighs and knees, and shoulders and her flushing face. Her clothes uneaten and in one piece: a pair of jean-shorts and a tee-shirt darkened and cooling with her sweat. Her light brown skin and hands, delicately long fingers still attached. No missing bones or organs.

The scrublands remain quiet around her. Minus the Angel chuckling behind her.

Though… chuckling for an Angel sounded a lot like broken, squeaking bicycle tires.

(Did the Angels squeak… or laugh? Did they even have mouths? No one ever asked Old Woman Josie.)

She turns, dread trickling over her in cold washes. And the radiant, ethereal light disappears.

A pair of light brown arms draws around her, hugging her neck and startling her from freezing up. A girl with similar height presses in close. She kisses her exposed neck and presses against Dana's chest with the soft weight of her tee-shirt covered breasts. Hands with delicately long fingers that stroke into Dana's dark, curly hair, in loving touches.

"I-I killed you," Dana whispers, eyes growing wide. A face that is hers peers back, solemn.

"_Yes. I did_," her double agrees.

Blue-violet eyes that are hers begin to melt into blackness.

The air smells like coins, mildly expensive. Filling and spilling from Dana's opening lips, molten-hot.

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She blinks.

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Her forehead smacks repeatedly against a solid, onyx wall of the Dog Park.

A whining "_aah_" escapes her as Dana clutches at her gut and doubles over, her chin dripping blood.

No radiant light comes for her.

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She gets out. Or at least thinks she does. Talks on her busted phone to Cecil. Sees John Peters at the house, walks _through_ him.

But really there's only mile-long, abyssal-swallowing walls, and the sounds of the tinfoil leaves.

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The gates reappear twenty years later. By then, the City Council has already declared a state of emergency.

Dana pushes them open, grass-stained knees and blood flaking her face, with one, steady hand. Eyes glazed over and irises catching silver in the streetlight.

She _hums_.

Time to play, Night Vale.

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_WTNV doesn't belong to me. So I wrote this fic about several days before the newest episode "Dana" aired, but still like what I did. And edited some content. So if it feels a little wibbly-wobbly AU, that's why. Any and all comments are deeply appreciated. And collected in a bucket of visceral matter. LONG LIVE INTERN DANA OR DANA'S DOUBLE!~  
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End file.
